A mage? A spell engineer!

Chapter 436 It's all God's fault

After calming the excited Bart down, Rorschach hurried to find Caroline.

The central tower's meeting rooms and restaurant restrooms each have a classically styled mirror, with a crystal embedded above the frame for illumination. But when Rorschach stands still and taps the mirror, the spherical crystal "opens its eyes," its artificial pupil focusing and confirming that the visitor is the master of the mage tower.

The walls of the washroom rotated, and Rorschach entered the mage tower.

The mage tower is located inside the central tower, so the meeting room and restaurant can have such "small mechanisms" in place. When he arrives at the entrance, there are checks and defenses, and he must open the next door to truly enter his own tower.

Professor Caroline only said she was inside the tower, without specifying her location. Rorschach began his search.

Most of the attendees probably thought that Rorschach had completely sided with the Empire, and this understanding was not wrong in the short term. For some time to come, those industries would have to rely on orders from the Imperial Army and some raw material inputs. If they followed the same path as the Bain royal family, the remaining market, demand and supporting industries within the Bain Kingdom would not be able to support the continued development of the enterprises.

This is a machine that cannot be stopped, a furnace that cannot be turned off; if it stops, much of the work will be wasted.

But that doesn't mean Rorschach would be content to be the Empire's henchman, dismantle the Byrne royal family, and turn his own little territory into a free state.

The free states under the imperial system, as the Chancellor said to Barth, were a little more progressive than the kingdoms controlled by the royal family and its old nobles. If Rorschach had said, "We should do what Valuvana did," there would have been even more opposition and timidity, and no one would have understood what the benefits of transforming a kingdom into a republic would be.

If the prime minister's promises are presented, many speculators will feel they have a powerful backer, the benefits will be more tangible, the motivation to progress will be greater, their fear will be less, and a free state will be more acceptable than a republic.

But that's just "a little bit"; we need to go further.

These things don't need to be explained at the meeting, but they should be made clear to Caroline. She's an important partner in "Spell Cloud," and as for his feelings for Valois, Rorschach isn't sure.

"She should be in her studio." Rorschach pushed open the door and entered. Caroline was at her workbench, surrounded by many documents and manuscripts, all brought by herself. Rorschach's mage tower had a weak foundation and a small collection of books, most of which were compiled by him in his spare time. Originally, the plan was to replicate a batch of books as part of the support provided by the Tower of Stars, but unfortunately, the war interrupted such exchanges.

Caroline remained unmoved by Rorschach's entrance, engrossed in her work, occasionally producing a sheet of paper. Rorschach saw it was unfinished calculations, so he grabbed a charcoal pencil to help, leaving the ones he couldn't solve to Tarling. Rorschach wanted to explain his choice, but couldn't find the opportunity.

Rorschach didn't want to be interrupted while he was working and researching, so he couldn't bring himself to interrupt Caroline's research, especially not for his own sake.

Rorschach wasn't particularly good at spatial systems or mathematics. As far as advanced mathematics was concerned, he could still handle basic auxiliary tasks. However, as the calculations became more difficult, he asked the Tower Spirit for help more and more frequently, eventually becoming an I/O tool between Caroline and the Tower Spirit.

In fact, Tarling's ability to process this information is based on his own memory of mathematics, combined with the calculation unit. In other words, these are things that Rorschach learned but then forgot.

His own rudimentary understanding is that Caroline is using mathematical language to describe a point in space. What she wants to lock onto is not a simple coordinate, but a group of random coordinates at a specific level, which of course points to the gas element plane.

After finishing her work, Caroline began, "Legend has it that the [Water Creation Technique] was invented by a great sage who wandered in the Sand Kingdom. The Sand Kingdom was once a battlefield where the Sun God and the God of War fought for supremacy. The Sun God's followers occupied the only great river in the land, so the Sun God made the scorching sun constantly bake the earth, causing other streams and rivers to dry up."

"In places illuminated by the power of the sun god, even for mages to conjure water elements, it is extremely difficult. The common people outside the banks of the great river can only endure drought or surrender to the river tribes and become slaves."

"The Great Sage could not bear to see this scene, so he went to the Water Elemental Plane, where the Valley Goddess Kris ruled. She was a loving mother who controlled the harvest and was willing to share the source of life. So she made a pact with the Great Sage, and magic and divine power formed a powerful secret contract that could extract the purest nectar from the Water Elemental Plane."

"Most importantly, the secret is simple enough: the Great Sage seeks out children blessed by Thoth, those with magical talent, and teaches them how to summon water. Out of respect for Chris, the Sun God did not prevent his people outside the great river basin from obtaining water in this way."

"Afterwards, the secret contract was fixed into a standard spell, and what has been passed down is the first level of the [Water Creation Spell]."

"Is this just a legend?"

"Yes, it's a legend. We don't know the truth, but let's use it as a template to create a [Qi Creation Technique]."

With the gods gone, there was naturally no way to find a "lord of the air elemental plane" to sign any contract. The covenant between the gods and the great sage mage also intended to use interdimensional faith to communicate between the two places.

As the number of spells cast increases, the corresponding pathways on the "Tree of Law" gradually become clearer, like water flowing through a river, eroding and deepening it. The spell model of [Water Creation] gradually solidifies, standardizes, and simplifies. To this day, no trace of gods or powerful mages can be seen in it; it is merely a matter of positioning and summoning.

So, the first thing that came to mind for replacing this connection was a "boundary." This is also related to the principles of various interdimensional crossings. Compared to maintaining a portal to various elemental planes, teleportation within the prime material plane is actually more difficult.

This strange phenomenon is also the fault of the gods of the past:

The Prime Material Plane was once the main battlefield of the gods. Their power permanently changed the landscape of the earth and space itself. In other words, to travel from one point in the Prime Material Plane to another, one needs to pass through many unknown interferences. Spatial teleportation can be extremely dangerous, with even the slightest error resulting in a huge difference in distance.

On the other hand, the various planes are connected by the astral plane, which is the fusion of the material and symbolic planes. Gods, especially those with elemental authority, frequently summon and teleport to the "main battlefield" in order to draw power from the elemental planes and deploy elemental creatures as servants. They even use their great power to change the pathways between the prime plane, the astral plane, and the various elemental planes, so that their power and servants can travel between them.

Due to the dual influences, the difficulty of interdimensional teleportation and teleportation within the same dimension is reversed, and this remains true to this day.

"Finally, register this secret contract with the Tower Spirit at the 'Border Land' to connect the two planes, and that should be enough in theory."

(End of this chapter)